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"He is an enemy officer taken in battle and entitled to fair treatment."
"No, sir. He's a sergeant, and they don't deserve no respect at all, sir. I should know. They're cunning and artful, if they're any good. I wouldn't mind if he was an officer, sir. But sergeants are clever."

Even forgetting about Capital expenditure for a while the least I would have expected would have been a huge staff retention package across all three branches to address the current brain drain and staff shortages.

The total current expenditure allocated for 2018 and projected to 2020 is €869 million, I imagine that is a figure meant to be adjusted for inflation/budget figure and, politics being what they are for a minority government, we can only take 2018 as certain. So % spend of budget remains unchanged at 1.4% (of the budget, not of GDP).
Capital expenditure on top of that is allocated as €77 million for 2018, €106 million in 2019 and €113 million in 2020.

It seems that they are hedging that the Defence Forces can just muddle through until debt reduction gives financial space?
The question is what kind of Defence Forces will remain by the time a future government thinks it can afford to raise the Defence budget to at least 1% of GDP.

Whatever happens, I suspect the Defence Forces need not bother looking for any significant change until 2021 or after. Brexit and the gods of economy permitting.

This is a 4 year increase in capital expenditure, therefore it is (€74m x 4) + €98m = €394m over 4 years

AFAIK some of the MOWAG MLUs have already taken place so some of that was probably already came out of 2017 estimates, same probably for the Cessna replacements. The fleet replacement programme sees each vessel paid for over 3+ years.

"Well, stone me! We've had cocaine, bribery and Arsenal scoring two goals at home. But just when you thought there were truly no surprises left in football, Vinnie Jones turns out to be an international player!" (Jimmy Greaves)!"